Women, Social Evolution and Enlightenment

Celebrating the unacknowledged and unappreciated life of women in our modern materialistic ego-driven culture, recognizing her unvalued contribution in nourishing and upholding the very fabric and foundation of life and civilization in the planet. The purpose is not to put women in a higher pedestal nor to emasculate men, but to arrive at a deeper understanding of the role of feminine in conscious human evolution, wise understanding and gender communication at all levels.

10/02/2017

We grow up believing many restricted and culturally conditioned belief systems around expressions of love. Did you know some of the great historical figures have been gay? Famous Gay Personalities.I read probably in Seth Books, that if we could live without social-cultural streotypes and conditioning around love and sex most of us would be bisexual. Over the years I came across a handful of gay people from both sexes, they are among the most warm, empathic, intelligent and friendly people I know of.Here is what new scientific discoveries say on homosexuality. It is an evolutionary expression of human social bonding regulated by the hormone progesterone. Nature designed us to be kind to each other, irrespective of gender.Diversity is Nature's way to preserve and sustain life in unbalanced or adverse conditions. Many countries including India, it is illegal to openly express homosexuality. On August 24, 2017, India's Supreme Court gave the country's LGBT community the freedom to safely express their sexual orientation,without overturning laws criminalizing same-sex relationship. [Wikipedia]

Here is a full documentary How We Got Gay

LGBT relationships are illegal in 74 countries and surprising number of countries still punish same-sex relationships with life in prisonment or even death! Dalai Lama has publicly condemned violence agaist LGBTQ people. There are no rules in Buddhist Monastic code (vinaya) against LGBTQ people becoming monks and nuns, who must take vows of celibacy. The third of the five training precepts all Buddhists (straight and gay) take, is abstaining from sexual (originally all sensual) misconduct of body-mind-speech that harms another.Pope Francis had asked Christians to ask for apology from Gay People for marginalizing them. See LGBT in Islam and Same-sex marriage. Mature love transcends love of body, mind and egoic and sexual identity. Then the unbounded love of true-self begins. From self-hate to self-love and Radical Self-acceptance. More on Love from Nature of Psyche by Seth/Jane Roberts.

4/12/2017

We're raising our girls to be perfect, and we're raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Saujani has taken up the charge to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program — two skills they need to move society forward. To truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half of our population, she says. "I need each of you to tell every young woman you know to be comfortable with imperfection." Through her nonprofit, Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani initiates young women into the tech world. Her goal: one million women in computer science by 2020. Full bio

The fear of imperfection and judgement keeps women stuck in status quo and procrastination.

11/03/2016

Good Citizens are mindful. They neither vote blindly along party lines, nor along gender, race, religion and such group identification. They take time to evaluate a candidate's personal integrity, inclusiveness, experience in public and community service, growth mindset, responsible public speech and conduct. A true leader of the people understands personalfreedom and privilege comes with a public responsibility and uses his/her power to unify people and nations according to timeless principles of virtue, wisdom and compassion. S/he cultivates goodwill and restrains from frivolous, false, malicious, fear-based divisive thinking, speech (abuse of first amendment right) and action.

For progressives and 'we the people' this election is an opportunity to vote for the First Female Presidential candidate in 240 years of United States history! Hillary Clinton adopted two-thirds of Bernie Sander's positions. Yet foreign donations to Clinton Global Foundation may be both a positive and corrupting influence.Some Sensible Republican Women and Men are supporting Hillary. Trump and many high level GOP candidates received money from Kelcy Warren, Texas Billionaire and investor of controversial Dakota Access Pipeline endangering human rights, sacred sites and water supply of Standing Rock Native Sioux people.

Only 31% support of female voters support Trump compared to 57% for Hillary Clinton. Latinos Support Hillary [Official Site for Hillary]Michelle Obama is no Enabler of Trump-like behavior in leaders and she showed the most uplifting support for Hillary and Millennial Girls.

"Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world." - Hillary Clinton

How a section of middle class people suffering from economic decline, fear, hate, hopelessness, cynicism and frustration are counting on Trump to dislodge and blow up the system. Michael Moore is trying to educate with his documentary "TRUMPLAND".

I Want A President 'Who Is Worthy Of My Girls' Promise' - Michelle Obama

If our newly elected President wants to make America Great again, s/he must model and inspire Good Citizenship for 21st century and must cultivate Compassion for all. Compassion like charity begins at home with oneself (Self-compassion), one's family, community, neighbors & fellow citizens.

9/28/2016

China now has 93 self-made women billionaires compared to 31 in the rest of the World.

How did Zhang Xin, cofounder and ceo of SOHO went from working in a sweatshop to being a billionaire real estate mogul in Beijing? She and her husband build more of Beijing than any Chinese Emperor. She is compared as the Steve Jobs of architecture.

China now has 568 billionaires compared to 535 in the US, and Beijing has overtaken New York as the billionaire capital of the world (with 100 compared to 95 in NYC).

China has now eliminated almost all urban poverty by giving cash subsidies to all city residents across China below the poverty line, and has a plan to eliminate all poverty by 2020 (10 years ahead of the UN’s 2030 Global Goals target). - See Roger Hamilton's Blog

A tiny subset of women among the world’s richest people built billion-dollar fortunes from scratch, using great ideas and hard work, despite the gender discrimination that often prevails in the global business world. These 33 self-made women make up only 2% of the world’s billionaires.

9/08/2016

Listen to the experience of a brave Pasthun Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai from her own mouth in her own candid words. She is the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, a remarkable brave young soul with enormous impact around the world.

While millions of Teens are swept by the consumerism of MTV style brand marketing, electronic gadgets, diet and beauty products (tested on animals and with harmful chemicals), there are a few people under 20 who already made a change in the world by using wise attention (yonisomanasikara)

Have you watched theHeforShe Campaign Video? This may change the dynamics of the feminist movement, if not politicized.

Also see the Ugly Truth about Beauty Industry. While European Union has banned 1300 ingredients in cosmetics, USA has banned only 11. Commentary: The unwise attention and wrong views arise from four perversions in auto-pilot behavior and conditioned mind; believing what is impermanent (all material things including one's body-mind-beliefs-possessions) as being permanent, seeing what is painful (addiction and bondage to sensual pleasure & material happiness) as pleasurable, seeing what is not self as self (mistaking ego and its identification for true self), what is foul (in substance) as beautiful (violence, porno, gluttony, greed).

3/11/2016

Stop selling our daughters and girls to Sex Trade, violence and sexual slavery. One brave woman Anuradha Koirala was recognized by CNN Heros in 2010 for her work in rescuing over 12,000 women and girls in Nepal. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting courageous Urmi Basu, Founder of New Light Foundation (which provides safe refuge and education for the vulnerable children in the red light district of Kalighat, Kolkata) at Tri-State Durga Puja 2015, Lexington, KY.

A research of 700 men over six countries were asked why men buy sex and the results do not confirm stereotypes. Most men did not feel good and actually carried some guilt and shame about buying sex but still kept doing it. Trace of Misogyny and insecurity/anxiety around sex due to lack of relationship skill with opposite gender may be some unconscious factors under play here. Lack of Social-awareness around the issue of human trafficking and forced prostitution of girls is what keeps the problem in place. SeeEveryday Sexism Project!

Some of the glorified philosophers like Aristotleportrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous. [Patriarchy, Wikipedia]. Some blame Buddhism (or distorted teachings of Buddha) being responsible for high level of Prostitution in Thailand. [Q &A on Buddhism]

University of Calgary psychologist Kibeom Lee and colleagues (2013) examined the correlations among the Dark Triad qualities (Machiavelian, psychopathic/sociopathic, and narcissistic traits) and the “outcomes” (though correlational) in the tendencies toward exploitative sexual liaisons (“Sex”), to dominate and exploit others (“Power”), and to be motivated toward materialistic ends and conspicuous consumption (“Money”). The opposite traits of the Dark Triad are Humility and Honesty. I will add Empathy as the third and most critical human trait lacking in the highly ego-driven dark triad.

Imagine What IF every high-school and college level education had a course on Social-Gender awareness and also created healthy opportunities for one to one social meetup between boys and girls or same gender based on mutual interest?

2/14/2016

Why do so many men have the compulsive need to abuse, molest and beat women, children and brutalize and kill other men and boys to hold up their distorted sense of power and manhood. Men (and women) need to stop pretending (and enabling) that watching pornography, violence and indulging in pedophilia in private is harmless to self and society.

Blaming the victim and killing the messenger is not the solution! [See world statistics at UN Women]

Young women are more likely to be violated in domestic situation and many of them even with ivy league degree do not leave the abusive situation. Listen to this story by Leslie Morgan Steiner.

End of violence against women begins with MEN and BOYS! It is important for a Woman to find her voice to be liberated from a Culture of Shame.

It is important to recognize and understand how guilt and shame has been used as a means of social and religious control. The more masculine culture of the West is guilt-based and the more feminine culture of the East are shame-based. Of course both can co-exist in the unconscious of the same individual or group. It is no wonder that much of this guilt and shame is played out in the private shadow arena of sexuality and intimate relationship and fear and distortions around them.

Buddha showed a way out of this deep ancient unconscious habits by being mindful of one's own unconscious mental conditioning through ignorance and craving (sankhara dukkha), genetic/family patterns, social perception and cultural attitude towards the opposite sex and one's own gender, by cultivating a meditative mind that sees things as they arise without condemnation or attachment, practice of goodwill and non-harm, kind and true speech, train one's mind-body-speech in wholesome ways, restraint of senses from indulgence and overstimulation and abandoning wrong-view of self.

12/10/2015

After watching another senseless mass shooting in San Barnandino, California and its aftermath with hyperbole from Donald Trump, I was looking for something better to watch for my own undestanding of radical Islam. I found Ayaan among the three brave muslim women, who won the 2015 Lantos Human Rights Award, USA.It is often said that there is no justice without freedom (political, economic, religious and cultural). Yet genuine freedom in a mindful society can only be protected through both individual and collective social responsibility in developing greater understanding of oppressive mass belief systems and harmful assumptions within modern and traditional societies. “Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.”

The following youtube was made 5 years ago.Ayyan was also interviewed in major news network including CNN recently by Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon.Following the events of the Arab Spring, Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in her latest book, “Heretic,” she came to the conclusion that “ordinary Muslims are ready for change.” Is there a Regressive Left? Listen to this interview of Ayaan by D. Ruben.
Learn more about Ayan Hirsi Ali's life in her autobiography Infidel: My Lifeand her work with AHA Foundation here.

According to PBS Global Connections, muslim women like other women across cultures have to fight for inequality and injustice. But maany of the oppressive local practices, do not necessarily come from Islam itself, but are part of the local customs and patriarchal cultural traditions.

7/26/2015

Our First Lady Michelle Obama has taken up a great cause the World needs and America needs now. Girls need to hear positive messages everyday before being coopted by the Makeup, Junk food, Soft drink, retail advertisement industry praying on their poor body-mind-self-image. 62 Millions girls do not get to go to school and perhaps many more cannot stay in school or continue higher education.

When teachers & society think girls are bad at math and science, it has an impact.

Girl Up engages girls to take action. Led by a community of nearly half a million passionate advocates raising awareness and funds, our efforts help the hardest to reach girls living in places where it is hardest to be a girl.Girls are powerful. When they’re educated, healthy, and safe, they transform their communities. When girls stand up for girls in need, they empower each other and transform our world. As the United Nations Foundation’s adolescent girl campaign, Girl Up engages girls to take action. Led by a community of nearly half a million passionate advocates raising awareness and funds, our efforts help the hardest to reach girls living in places where it is hardest to be a girl.Girls are powerful. When they’re educated, healthy, and safe, they transform their communities. When girls stand up for girls in need, they empower each other and transform our world. [Source Link][Let Girls Learn teams Up]A very rich resource on conversations on Women and Power at OMEGA Institutecan be browsed here. [Eomega Key initiatives, 2002-2015]

Brahma dwells in homes where children respect their parents. - Buddha, Itivuttaka

"To be female is to have the dukkha of a female, to be male is to have the dukkha of a male. Children have the dukkha of children, and adults have the dukkha of adults, as long as there is grasping and clinging."

- Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

Let us ride our horse of confidence

Use our bow and arrow of genuineness

Develop our gentleness, so we need not destroy our world.

- Chyogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

"Most Buddhists seem unaware of the critical role women can play and do not seem to care about women’s disadvantaged status. Buddhists seem to believe their own propaganda that women and men are equal in Buddhism, and are blinded to the blatant inequalities that currently exist. Some Buddhists pay lip service to women's importance, but institutional structures do not reflect any commitment to women's advancement or to women's equal participation. In fact, the mantra that women and men are equal in Buddhism acts as a kind of smokescreen to mask inequities that are clearly visible. Women continue to be sidelined in public forums, even by educated and otherwise compassionate people, both women and men""

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"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses who are waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage. perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that needs our love." - Rilke